Games to Film: Ridley Scott on Halo?

November 19, 2004 - Ridley Scott, the man behind such highly respected genre fare as Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, may direct a movie based the hit gaming franchise Halo. The Aint it Cool News website broke the news last night and gaming fans around the globe have already begun wetting themselves with excitement.

A scooper for the site says that producers Ronald Shusett and Daniel Alter have talked to Ridley' s Scott Free productions about the project. The source adds that Scott had actually been approached about Halo in the past and wasn' t interested, but now that sales of Halo 2 have blown the roof off the place that may change.

We checked with our own sources about the Halo film project and they claim that Ridley has been hesitant to take on the project in the past because he hasn' t seen " a world for a story." Yes, we can hear all of you screaming at your computer screens. It will do no good. No doubt the " Get Sir Ridley for Halo" petitions will be circulating within minutes. Our source says there' s a potential storyline being cooked up, but that Scott won' t be approached again until the story is cracked with excellence.

The recently released Halo 2 smashed sales records and has surely captured the attention of movie moguls. In the sequel, players take on the role of Master Chief, a genetically enhanced super-soldier who is the only thing standing between the relentless Covenant and the destruction of all humankind.

It seems appropriate here to blurb IGN Xbox' s Doug Perry, who included a bit of unintentional foreshadowing in his review of Halo 2. Doug says, " Halo was a game about exploring a single ring, and in that it' s like the movie Alien. Halo 2 is like Aliens. The first Alien movie was about learning the parameters of a single creature. The second movie was an onslaught of aliens, multiple plots and sub-plots, and conspiracies. It was bigger in scope and more encompassing in its ambition than the first. Halo 2 is a massive expansion of the original story in every aspect. The story is more complex, and to a much greater extent than its predecessor it' s more vast, more mysterious, and ultimately, a much meatier one. Just like Aliens, it is bigger in scope and more encompassing in ambition than its predecessor."